High School Tragedy
by super duper yay
Summary: You see them on Myspace every day, and now you'll see them at East High. What if the HSM crew was a bit...different? Please, please note the humor part of the genre below. :]
1. The Mypace Angle

_**Just a note.** **Please read.**_

_Don't kill me for this. I hope you're not offended. I don't want anyone to be. It's supposed to be funny. People are people, not labels. This is just me making fun of the emo stereotype, featuring some of our favorite & familiar characters. That and, I just get insanely cool ideas sometimes._

_This idea in particular isn't supposed to be the most spectacular thing ever and is not to be taken too seriously. So I'm already aware that it's weird. I just felt like it. Ever have that happen: )_

_I wrote a lot of it between 1 and 3 in the morning. That might explain._

* * *

"Gabi, there is no way you're still getting ready," Mrs. Montez yelled up the stairs. "You do realize you have rehearsals with Kelsi and Troy in five minutes, right?"

Gabriella sighed and brought a frustrated fist down on her computer desk. "Yes, Mom," she replied, trying not to clench her teeth. "If freaking Myspace would upload my freaking pictures!"

"What?"

"Nothing. Gosh…"

Gabriella left her computer dejectedly and grabbed her backpack, which was pink but covered with black Sharpie scribbles and various pins declaring her love for punk bands and robots and her attitude towards stupid people, shoving her books inside. It was clearly an off day. Honestly, 7:30 a.m. and Myspace already malfunctioning on her? Purely idiotic.

"Snap it up, mija!"

"I AM SNAPPING." Gabriella grabbed her digital camera off of her desk, sighing in annoyance and holding the camera high up above her head. "…more pictures." She pouted her lip, stared off in the direction of her wall, and took her picture.

Holding the camera down in front of her, she flipped it around and checked to see how the image had turned out. "Oh, that's awesome," she commented with a grin. "Going on the Myspace right after school." She scowled at her computer. "IF IT WORKS! Idiot." She tossed her camera in her bag, slung it over her shoulder, hit her computer screen with the side of her fist, grabbed her eyeliner off her dresser, and left her bedroom in a hurry. Upon slamming the door, her black nail polish was knocked onto the floor and broken. Let's just say Myspace wouldn't be the only thing ticking her off later.

* * *

Troy worked to button the pants until they finally fastened. "About freaking time," he mumbled, standing in front of the bathroom mirror. "But… I do look awesome, I guess."

"Troy, who are you talking to?" Mrs. Bolton's curious voice came from the opposite side of the locked door.

"Myself," he admitted, grabbing a brush and a hairdryer.

"Okay…"

Troy sighed, gazing into his reflection at his wet hair, through which he could actually see his piercing blue eyes.

"We'll have to do something about this," he muttered, as the hairdryer roared on. For ten minutes, he brushed, flipped and dried, brushed, flipped and dried.

He shut off his hairdryer, staring at his reflection.

It wasn't right.

He grabbed the brush and carefully, painstakingly ran it through his hair.

"There," he announced finally, thoroughly proud of himself. "I can barely even see. Now…where's my camera?"

After spinning around in circles for several seconds, and feeling around the surface of the counter in front of him, he finally located it.

Looking as grim as possible, he held the camera up beside him, facing the mirror. With a flash, he had a new profile picture.

"Troy, honey, hurry it up a bit. You've got your rehearsals," his mom reminded him, showing up again out of nowhere.

"Yeah, okay."

In these pants, he would find it difficult to run, but he might just have to if he was going to get to those rehearsals on time. Stupid rehearsals. He'd rather sit in his room and play Hawthorne Heights on his guitar. Badly. But Hawthorne Heights nonetheless.

Throwing back his head to shake the hair from his eyes, which he didn't really want to do anyway, for only the first time that day, he threw open the bathroom door and ambled on downstairs. He tried to run. But how did they expect him to in these jeans?


	2. Mixtape

Kelsi sighed and tapped her fingers on the piano, impatiently. Gabriella and Troy were supposed to be at her house at 7:35. That's the time she had given them. Clearly. It was now… 7:36. No Gabriella. No Troy.

Did they hate her or something?

She sighed. Again. Tapped her fingers some more.

Dismally, she grabbed her notebook from her backpack, flipped it open to a clean page, and grabbed a black pen. Time to write some more.

"She silently suffers," Kelsi murmured to herself as she scrawled, "No one to hear. Running mascara, black and…" She paused. "Clear? No. That doesn't make any _sense_." She sighed. "No, you know what, I'm just gonna make it not rhyme." She continued to write.

Suddenly, a door slammed shut, and she heard footsteps. She raised her head to look, as best as she could through her long, dark, straight cut bangs.

"Kelsi, I'm here." It was Gabriella. She entered the room looking flustered, dropping her bag on the floor and sitting down in a chair nearby the piano.

"Good." Kelsi nodded, putting her notebook away. "So where's Troy?"

"Like I know."

"Oh." Kelsi snuck a glance at her watch again. 7:37. She blew out her breath, looking up at Gabriella.

"I like your hair," she told her.

"Oh, yeah?" Gabriella held up a strand she had dyed red. "Thanks. My mom kind of flipped at first, but she got over it."

"Yeah. I tried to do the same thing, but with blue. My parents would never go for it though. Yours must be cool."

"Not really." Gabriella laughed.

The door slammed again, and the girls waited for the next arrival. A few seconds passed. Nobody entered the room.

"Uh," Kelsi began. "Hello?"

"Hey. It's Troy," came the response. He still hadn't entered the room.

"Are you… coming in?" Gabriella wondered.

"Yeah."

The girls looked at each other curiously.

Just then, Troy finally appeared. Half of him. The other half appeared a second later, and then all of Troy walked slowly into the room.

"Sorry," he apologized coolly. "My jeans are super tight."

"Oh, okay." Both girls nodded.

"So, let's do this rehearsal thingy," Kelsi proposed. "Gabriella, did you work on your part at all?"

"Yeah, kinda. But I dropped red hair dye on the paper halfway through, soooo…"

Kelsi nodded. "Okay. We'll have to work on it here, then. Troy?"

"Huh?" He shook his head, pulling himself out of his happy place. "Oh. Yeah. Same."

"You dropped red hair dye on your sheet music?" Kelsi asked.

"Uh… yeah."

Gabriella snorted.

"Okay then." Kelsi shrugged. "So… I'll play now, and you guys sing. We'll pick it up where we left off last time. Which…was at the beginning."

Gabriella and Troy looked at each other. Gabriella smiled a bit and looked away. Troy leaned over and whispered into her ear.

"I made you a mixtape…"

Gabriella giggled like a schoolgirl.

"Let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster," she replied.

"Okay guys, you're cute, but can we sing now and stuff?" Kelsi prodded.

Gabriella caught herself in the middle of a new round of girlish giggles. "Yeah. We're good…" But she couldn't look at Troy, that adorable flippy thing he did with his hair, his band T-shirt, wristband with a little mushroom on it, girl pants… without smiling. He made her want to smile when no one else could. Ooh, good picture caption, she thought.

Kelsi sat up straight, clearing her throat before beginning to play. Gabriella and Troy attempted to sit up, and began to sing obediently.

"We're soaring, but falling… there's no star in heaven we'll ever reach…"

"WTF?" Kelsi actually pronounced each letter. "Those aren't the words, guys."

Gabriella and Troy just sighed.

"They should be," Gabriella grumbled.

"I know, right?" Troy added.

Kelsi kept playing.


	3. Comment Me

"Our school sucks. Did you know that?"

Chad Danforth threw down his bag roughly and sat down at a table next to Taylor McKessie, just after making his announcement. Taylor raised only her eyes to acknowledge him.

"And is this some kind of a revelation, Chad?" she asked dryly, clinging to the heavy book on her lap that she was attempting to finish reading for the 24th time, give or take a few. With each movement of her full lips, her lip ring glinted in the dull library lights.

"Shhhhh!" The librarian scolded them.

Taylor scowled at her, and the librarian, terrified by the green eyeshadow and catlike eyeliner that was caked every which way around Taylor's eyes, backed away slowly before taking off behind a bookcase.

Chad watched her go, then turned back to Taylor. "That's a big word, Tay," he responded. "But anyway, they suck because they've blocked Myspace from the computer I got on. They blocked it on the computer next to that, too, and the one three down. But there's people on the rest of them, so I can't check those."

Taylor, stonefaced, turned her gaze to Chad again.

"Chad," she said slowly, "They have blocked Myspace on_ every_ computer."

Chad scoffed. "Why? That's so effing lame."

"You did not just say 'effing'."

"Yeah, I did. So why'd they block Myspace?"

"Because," Taylor began, accepting the fact that she'd never finish her book and sticking her skull and crossbones pen in as a bookmark, "Myspace is a blogging site, on which you can share personal information with strangers, and the school doesn't permit—"

"Dude, I don't even write blogs. I just tell people to comment my sweet pictures. I got a new one, you know. It's a mirror picture." He looked excited.

"Fantastic, Chad. The first one ever on Myspace." Taylor rolled her eyes.

"You should comment it later."

"Hm, no."

"Why?"

"Because…" Taylor sighed as the first period bell rang, picking up her _Nightmare Before Christmas_ shoulder bag. "You suck too much for me to comment it. You haven't commented mine in like a month." She turned to go.

"But I put you in my top 8!" he protested, running after her. "You're number 2!"


	4. Girls Room

"Eyeliner, please."

She held out her hand, expectantly. His hand, containing the stick of black, met hers.

"Thanks," she replied, but not warmly, as she grabbed it away. Staring into her reflection, she ran it around the edge of her eyes, again and again…

Ryan sat slumped against the wall of one of East High's bathrooms, waiting for his sister to reach a point where she was satisfied with the smokiness of her eyes.

"Sharpay, someone's gonna, like, realize that a guy is in the girl's room pretty soon," he told her.

"So?" she retorted, fluffing at her bangs, making sure they swept across most of her forehead and nearly, but not entirely, covered her eyes. "People think you're a girl sometimes anyway."

"They do?"

"Yeah. I mean, your pants are fit not only for a female, but for one who's twelve years old."

Ryan looked down at the jeans he wore, and shrugged.

"And your hair hangs down so far, it could be mistaken for a girl's bob."

He attempted to look up at the blonde mop on his head, only to get it in his eyes.

"And when you wear those chunky rim glasses…"

"Kay, thanks Sharpay. I got it."

"Just saying." She tossed her eyeliner to him, which he dutifully put back in her handbag for her. Sharpay fluffed her long hair, adjusted the huge, mod black headband in it, and ran her hands down the front of her tight black tank top with tiny white skulls and crossbones covering it, and sighed. "I'm ready now."

Ryan jumped up quickly.

"Didn't the bell ring like two minutes ago?" he asked.

Sharpay just shrugged. "Two, ten, whatev. It's all a bunch of crap anyway. Everyone's a lie here…" She sulked at her reflection.

Ryan sighed in response, crossing his arms over his black T-shirt which featured a heart being cut in two by scissors. "A deep, twisted, broken lie," he agreed.

Sharpay stared dully at her reflection for another second, before turning to face him. "You really need to work on that one." She paused a moment, examining him. "Hey wait. When did you get a lip ring?"

Just then, the door swung open, and a half asleep teacher who was obviously on free period with nothing better to do ambled in slowly.

"Morning, ladies," she mumbled to Sharpay and Ryan as she passed.


	5. Robots

"All right, everyone, let's settle down." Ms. Darbus threw one end of the large, flamboyant wrap she wore around her shoulder in a frustrated gesture as she entered the room. She scanned the faces of her class, sighing.

"Okay. So we're already settled down, I see." Nobody was talking or moving around at all. They all sat slumped in their seats, staring blankly.

"Anyhow," Ms. Darbus continued, rolling her eyes, quite used to this routine by now. She didn't know why she bothered to make her entrance the way she did. "Just a quick announcement. Afterschool rehearsals for the winter musicale have been changed from four days this week to all five. So anyone involved in the production, please be in the auditorium right after school today."

"Oh em gee!" Gabriella hissed, sinking lower in her seat. "Frickin' –"

"Miss Montez?"

"Yeah?"

"Care to share?"

"Um, no."

She sighed, looking over at Troy. He looked depressed about it too, until their eyes met. Gabriella allowed herself to flutter her eyelashes for a second before looking down.

A moment later, she heard a loud "Pssst." She looked up from the dull and redundant pattern of her desk to meet Troy's eyes again. He glanced up at Darbus, who was babbling endlessly and scrawling her "Steps to Theatrical Success" on the board, and reached back to Gabriella, handing her a small folded piece of paper. Quickly, she grabbed it from his hand, smiled, and sat back in her seat.

Holding the paper down in her lap and looking up again to make sure she wasn't being watched, she then looked down and unfolded it.

In the middle of the creased paper were two hand drawn robots with hearts surrounding them. One was colored black, the other pink. Underneath the black one was an arrow pointing to it and "Me", and under the other was an arrow and "You".

Gabriella looked back up at Troy, trying not to giggle insanely. Only he could do this to her. Everyone else was a fake who could only break her heart. Sigh.

Troy looked back at her, smiling just a little.

At that particular moment, the classroom door opened again and Eyeliner Queen, followed closely by Chunky Rim Glasses King, made their grand entrance.

Ms. Darbus turned towards the distraction and sighed, hands on her hips. "Sharpay and Ryan Evans. Do you realize this is the third time this week you've been tardy?"

"My eyeliner broke?" Sharpay tried.

"My lip ring fell out and was bleeding everywhere, like my broken heart?" Ryan attempted.

Darbus just stared at them.

"Just take your seats," she sighed.

"Dude, you got a lip ring?" Chad asked Ryan.

"Yeah. No big," Ryan replied, shrugging.

"I pierced something too," Chad replied. Taylor, sitting in behind him, raised her eyebrows.

"Really?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah. My…"

"Boys, quiet please!"

Chad waited until Darbus was turned back around. "…Eyebrow." He lifted up his huge hair to show it off.

"Dude, that's… hot."

"Did you just call me hot?" Chad inquired.

"No, I called your_ piercing_ hot," Ryan corrected him. "Gosh…"

"Shut up," Sharpay told both of them without turning around, holding up a compact mirror as she improved on her eyeliner.

"Make me," Ryan replied dully, crossing his arms over his chest.

Still applying eyeliner with one hand, Sharpay reached over with the other and gave her twin brother a furious noogie.

"Oh my gahhh!" Ryan exclaimed, putting his hands over his head. "Shar, it took me like four and a half minutes to straighten thissss!"

"Cry me a river, doll," Sharpay mumbled, rolling her eyes.

"I will," Ryan sulked.

"Oh for heaven's sake! It's quiet as a tomb in here and as soon as you two show up, mayhem breaks loose!" Darbus exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Uhh…" Chad began. "Don't you mean he –"

The bell rang, and everyone dragged themselves slowly from their desks.


End file.
